BRUNO DELBONNEL AFC/ASC

Career:
In the late 1970s he got a grant from the French government and directed the
short 'Réalités rares'. 'I decided to move to New
York. That was around 1980. I thought it might be easier - but it was tougher. I
stayed in New York around six to nine months. That's when I met doph Nestor
Almendros. He advised me to go back to France. So I went back to France, but I
was speaking English better than before. Around that time, a commercial producer
in France, who thought the best commercials were in England and the States,
started hiring English and American directors and cinematographers, and they
needed assistants who were able to speak English... that's how I got started.' Became c.asst working with Douglas
Slocombe, Gerry Fisher, a.o., on commercials.

Bruno
Delbonnel: 'First, digital timing
is a new tool for cinematographers, but it doesn't mean you can shoot and find
the look of the film afterwards in timing. Digital timing helps to go further in
what was done during the shoot. Digital timing won't give you a direction of
light if you didn't give this direction on the set in the first place. I did 90
percent of the lighting of 'Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie
Poulain'during the main
photography, using filters on the camera, gels on light, etc. Everything I could
do while we were shooting, I did. Secondly, digital timing is going to change
the culture of cinematography because it opens new territories. There are a lot
of things that you cannot do with a lab process that are easy to do with digital
timing. I think that digital timing can help us to create new kinds of images,
new kinds of looks and therefore will change ways of seeing and ways of feeling
emotions through light. We are just at the beginning of a very interesting way
of using colors and contrast.... But of course you need two people to do that: a
director and a cinematographer, who both want to experiment. Only two people can
decide the look of the film - the director and the cinematographer - because
they work together from the beginning so they know exactly what they want to
achieve. So, the cinematographer must be there to time the film. There are so
many possibilities with digital timing that you have to know exactly what you
want otherwise you can spend months in timing. You can also ruin your film,
because you can change it totally. We are not painters - we are not working
alone - we are working for a director and for a script. If you are not at the
final timing, all those discussions you had previously are useless.
Cinematographers have to be involved with the timing.' [From interview on KODAK
OnFilm website.]